“I had to limit a lot of things last year as far as workload,” Davis said. “I didn’t have a beer all of spring training last year. I went home and laid on the couch. And I usually fish for another six hours every day [after Mets workouts]. I didn’t say anything to anybody, besides maybe the trainers.”

According to Rubin, Davis wouldn’t directly attribute his fatigue to having Valley Fever, although he added, “I definitely had something.”

“I was just a little unathletic (in 2012),” Davis admits now. “Basically, my ankle was dead. It wasn’t like it was hurting. It wasn’t aching. It was just the quickness on my first step. I wasn’t able to run.”

However, Tim Teufel told Martino he thinks Davis’ quickness has returned and is back to where it was before he injured his ankle nearly two years ago.

Michael Baron, Contributor

Terry Collins talked a lot last year about Davis missing most of the 2011 season and how he needed to readjust to the speed of the Major League game. I buy that – he missed most of his second Major League season, and had an unusual off-season that winter rehabbing from that ankle injury. That, on top of Valley Fever could have definitely attributed to Davis’ poor start. But last June, the light just went on for Ike – at least offensively – and he became a tremendous, middle of the order force for the team. There’s almost an unfair expectation that he can outproduce his 32 home runs from last season, but if he’s healthy and he has his feet under him this year, it should be a lot of fun watching him on both sides of the ball in 2013…